by Lisa BROWN,
in collaboration with other past and present members
of the Burchfield-Penney Art Center Staff
Dr. Charles Rand Penney has established a reputation locally, nationally and
internationally as the definitive collector. His wide-ranging interests have led him to
collect in exceedingly diverse categories. A very limited list of Dr. Penneys art
collections includes contemporary international prints, drawings, sculptures, paintings,
and posters; historic 18th and 19th century prints of Niagara Falls; traditional art from
Africa and New Guinea; and folk art from China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia,
Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Puerto Rico, Russia, Tahiti, Thailand, Tunisia,
the United States, and Yugoslavia. Dr. Penney has collected antiques in categories as wide
ranging as American political campaign bandannas; cast iron door stops and garden
furniture; Mr. Peanut costumes and articles; postcards from various Western New York
locations; quilts and coverlets; Roycroft articles and Elbert Hubbard memorabilia; sheet
music; Staffordshire Victorian portrait figurines and plates, platters and pitchers with
landscape paintings; and stamps. He has also collected autographs, belt buckles, coins,
decoys, foundry wood patterns and molds and textiles. This very limited list represents a
small fraction of Dr. Penneys collecting.
Charles Rand Penney in his World War II
uniform with his mother, father |
In 1991 and 92 Dr. Penney donated his important collection of Western New York
art to the Burchfield Art Center at Buffalo State College. This major gift of 152 works by
102 artists was one of the largest gifts in the Centers history. Dr. Penney then
made another pivotal gift to the Center, bringing the number of works donated to 1,260
pieces, including significant craft art and Roycroft objects and 183 works of art by
watercolorist Charles E. Burchfield. Included in this donation were such Burchfield
masterpieces as The Moth and the Thunderclap and an extremely rare Self-Portrait. In honor
of this landmark gift the museum was renamed the Burchfield-Penney Art Center during a
formal public rededication ceremony held on April 9, 1994, the 101st anniversary of
Burchfields birth.
Dr. Penney with two masks from his African Art Collection, 1997.* |
A fascinating aspect of Dr. Penneys collection of works by Charles E. Burchfield
is the close friendship that it engendered between the collector, the artist, and the
artists wife, Bertha. Dr. Penney was a dedicated supporter, collecting work from all
periods of the artists career, from very early nature studies to symbolic, mature
paintings. His patronage brought a welcome stability to the family income. Dr. Penney
notes that; the Frank K.M. Rehn Galleries and the James N. Goodman Gallery
[Burchfields dealers] would allow me to spread out my payments over a period of
time. I was very grateful for this. And these gallery directors thanked mefor by
doing this it also meant that Charlie had an assured incomewhich in the past had
experienced ups and downs. Perhaps this is what enabled Charlie to own a new, large and
comfortable Buick and to have music in his home that he had not been able to afford in
earlier days. He very much enjoyed playing classical records on his stereo.
Dr. Penney manages his collections without a staff, taking on himself the role of
director, curator, researcher, archivist, librarian, education director, public relations
director, registrar and docent. Each aspect of the operation is run meticulously and is
aimed at fulfilling the mission of the Charles Rand Penney Collection: to acquire,
conserve, exhibit and promote culturally significant artifacts and artworks. His
collections reflect his considerable skill as a researcher. They are based on original and
extensive compilations of data about each object, including information about its creator,
history, culture, medium, style, purpose, provenance and physical description. In addition
to the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, distinguished institutions including the Columbus
Museum of Art, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Cornell University, the Roberson Museum
and Science Center in Binghamton and the University of Iowa Museum of Art have received
important gifts from Dr. Penneys collections.
Charles Rand Penney in the Gobi Desert, Outer Mongolia, 1975. |
The Archives of American Art, a unit of the Smithsonian Institution which provides
researchers with access to the largest collection of documents on the history of the
visual arts in the United States, says about Dr. Penney in its publication the Archives of
American Art Journal, [he] is surely one of the most prodigious collectors of our
time. His perspicacity and appetite were evident from early youth, when he began acquiring
drawings and prints, not only from local artists of his familys acquaintance but
also examples of nationally known artists. From these precocious beginnings, Penneys
collection had grown exponentially by the 1990s to encompass scores of different types of
art and artifacts.
In addition to his career in collecting, Dr. Penney is also an attorney and world
traveler. Though seemingly diverse, these interests all reflect Dr. Penneys
life-long devotion to the principles of education and excellence. About his travels, noted
local historian Dr. Albert L. Michaels has said that, Penney feels an obligation to
know about the area he is traveling in, to understand its history and culture and to be
knowledgeable about it when he returns. He has visited more than 75 countries
including Afghanistan, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Mongolia, New Guinea, New
Zealand, Siberia, Tahiti, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
Dr. Penney working in the files of the Charles Rand Penney Foundation, 1965. |
In honor of Dr. Penneys many contributions to the region, Lockport Mayor Kenneth
D. Swan awarded him the key to the city on May 18, 1997. He was cited for his devotion to
the principles of education and excellence as exhibited through his extraordinary history,
which includes service to the country as a counter-intelligence agent with the rank of
second lieutenant in the United States Army during World War II and the establishment in
1963 of the Charles Rand Penney Foundation, which loaned artwork extensively throughout
the world for thirteen years. Upon the dissolution of the foundation, Dr. Penney donated
most of the works of art to the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester. Dr.
Penney was instrumental in the development of Lockports Kenan Center. As a founding
member he helped secure for the Center its historic facility and loaned works from his
Charles Burchfield collection for the Kenan Centers first exhibition in 1967 and
from his collection of work by Niagara County artists for its 25th anniversary
celebration. The mayors citations were echoed in a proclamation by New York State
Assemblyman David E. Seaman. Also in 1997, Dr. Penney was honored for his philanthropy by
the National Society of Fund Raising Executives and the Arts Council of Buffalo and Erie
County. Lockport author Brandon M. Stickney, whose book about Timothy McVeigh was just
published, is currently taking initial steps to begin writing Dr. Penneys biography.
Dr. Penney received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University in 1945 and a law
degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. In 1995 he was awarded a prestigious
honorary doctor of fine arts degree from the State University of New York. Buffalo State
College awarded him the Presidents Distinguished Service Award in 1991, named him a
Distinguished Fellow of Cultural Studies in 1993 and has appointed him an honorary life
member of the Presidents Circle. The Presidents Distinguished Service to
Culture Award was granted by the College of Arts and Sciences at the State University of
New York at Potsdam in 1983. He has honorary life membership in the University of
Iowas Presidents Club and Directors Circle and the University of
Rochesters Presidents Society. He is an honorary board member, an honorary
lifetime member and a member of the Directors Circle of the Memorial Art Gallery and
honorary trustee of the Buffalo Society of Artists. Other honorary memberships include the
Niagara County Antiques Club, Patteran Artists Society, Rochester Art Club and the Mark
Twain Society. He is a member of Chi Psi and Phi Alpha Delta. In 1989, the Explorers Club
of New York City elected Dr. Penney a fellow, recognizing his extraordinary
accomplishments as an international traveler. He is one of only three Western New Yorkers
to be given this honor. Dr. Penney is also a member of the Grolier Club, the Library Club
of New York, the Pan-American Exposition 1901 Collectors Society and the Yale Club
in New York among others.
Charles E. Burchfield, the Moth and the Thunderclap, 1961, watercolor, 36 x 48, the Charles Rand Penney Collection of Works by Charles E. Burchfield at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. |
Dr. Penney has said I have tried to strive for excellence in whatever I
undertake, be it small or large. What success I may have achieved has required initiative,
imagination and dedication to the task at hand. Satisfaction comes from the hard work that
leads to an objective. In all that I do, I adhere to the Golden Rule and to fairness,
honesty and understanding in human relationships. And I enjoy living in a small community
because it is from such areas that the strength of America comes.
The Western New York community is made immeasurably richer by the presence of this
fascinating, generous and committed man in all his incarnationslawyer, civic worker,
philanthropist, explorer, collector and scholar.
Lisa Brown is the Public Relations Coordinator at the
Burchfield-Penney Art Center.
* Photo taken by Dennis Stierer
Photos other than of the artwork are from the private collection of Charles Rand Penney.